No easy skate: S.F. is no longer shredder heaven

Travis Jensen, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Friday, March 9, 2007

Photo: Penni Gladstone

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PLACE16 On the Embarcadero, anti-skateboard clips. Column is on the landscape of 2006
photo by penni gladstone, sf chronicle Photo taken on 5/11/06, in Berkeley, CA.
Ran on: 05-16-2006
Clips to prevent skateboarding have become part of the landscape -- although few but skateboarders may have noticed.
Ran on: 03-09-2007
Anti- skateboard clips like these at the Embarcadero put an end to the fun for many skaters in the city. less

PLACE16 On the Embarcadero, anti-skateboard clips. Column is on the landscape of 2006
photo by penni gladstone, sf chronicle Photo taken on 5/11/06, in Berkeley, CA.
Ran on: 05-16-2006
Clips to prevent ... more

Photo: Penni Gladstone

No easy skate: S.F. is no longer shredder heaven

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Almost every veteran skateboarder agrees that San Francisco was a skateboarding mecca in the late '80s through the '90s. Skaters flocked to the city from all over the world to be part of the movement.

Embarcadero Center's Justin Herman Plaza, known among skateboarders as "EMB," was the most famous skate spot in the world for a number of years. On any given weekend in the early to mid '90s, one could find upward of 200 individuals skating the plaza, which served almost as a proving ground for newcomers trying to make a name in skateboarding.

"The movement at EMB was so strong that skaters started coming out here from all over the world to check us out," says Pat Washington, a 29-year-old professional skateboarder. "A lot of tricks and styles were originated at EMB. We were pioneering modern street skating."

Embarcadero Center businesses, particularly those at Justin Herman Plaza, were known to telephone police multiple times a day to complain about the skateboarders disrupting business.

When the cops arrived, the first skater to spot them would yell "Five-O!" and everyone would scatter. The police would cite and sometimes even arrest the unlucky skateboarders they caught, then leave. An hour or two later, most of the skaters would return and start skating again. This game of cat and mouse went on for several years until 1995, when the Embarcadero Center's property management convinced the Police Department to position an officer at the plaza round-the-clock until the plaza was demolished and rebuilt in 1999.

Keith Hufnagel, 33, veteran professional skateboarder and HUF sneaker store owner, moved to San Francisco in 1992 for skateboarding and to attend San Francisco State. He recalls: "I got arrested one time just as I was walking out of the BART station tunnel at Embarcadero. I think it was '93. I wasn't even skating, but I had my board in my hand."

It wasn't until around 2000, with the use of skate-stoppers (steel knobs affixed to ledges, handrails and other surfaces to prevent skateboarding), that the city and many businesses were able to curb skateboarding.

By 2003, all but a few of the city's well-known spots were skate-proofed, resulting in a skateboarder exodus from San Francisco. Many skaters felt that skateboarding in the city was dead and migrated to other hot spots such as Los Angeles, New York and even Barcelona.

"I left San Francisco for a little while," Hufnagel says when asked about the city's skateboarding crackdown. "I was just over it. I moved back to New York for a little while, then to L.A., but I eventually came back here."

Others, like Washington, enjoyed everything else the city had to offer other than skateboarding and stayed behind, finding new spots to skate and giving some of the older, overshadowed spots a new life. When all else failed, one could always grab a board and shred the hills, which many local skaters consider to be San Francisco's most attractive skateboarding feature to begin with.

In recent months, an anonymous group of vigilante skateboarders in the city have discovered a way to remove skate-stoppers. The first spot to be "liberated" was Pier 7.

Located just down the Embarcadero from the late EMB, many skaters joked that Pier 7 (rebuilt after extensive damage in the '89 earthquake) was heaven-sent as the city unveiled the near-perfect skate spot around the same time EMB was shut down by police in '95.

Although police were quick to issue tickets at Pier 7 from Day One, their efforts did little to keep the skateboarders out. The spot's legacy lasted just shy of 10 years before falling victim to skate-stoppers.

Shortly after Pier 7's resurrection, skate-stoppers started disappearing from other well-known spots, most notably the "Hubba Hideout" ledges in the Financial District's Ferry Park.

"Man, I was so psyched when I found out the pier and Hubba had been de-knobbed!" Washington says. "It felt just like the old days in the city again!"

Local skateboard hardware company Roughneck hosted an impromptu "Best Trick" contest at Hubba Hideout at the end of October, attracting more than 100 skateboarders. The winner, Tommy Wisdom, 18, skated away with a $200 cash prize for his switch-stance heel-flip backside 50-50 grind down one of the waist-high ledges along the stairs of the elevated walkway connecting Ferry Park and One Maritime Plaza.

It didn't take long for the city to react. Within weeks, the skate-stoppers were re-installed at both Pier 7 and Hubba Hideout. Signs were even posted at Pier 7 threatening tickets of as much as $500 for skateboarding.

However, just as quickly as the city was to put the skate-stoppers back on, the vigilantes were even quicker to remove them again. This turf war between the city and skateboarders has been going on for months.

San Francisco currently has one skate park, which is basically an empty swimming pool in a remote corner of Crocker-Amazon Park. Built in 2001 at a cost of $500,000, the park is rarely ever skated because of its old-fashioned design and out-of-the-way location.

Many non-skateboarders believe the simple solution to the skateboarding problem would be for the city to construct a more accessible skate park, one that emulates spots like EMB, Pier 7 and Hubba Hideout. Talks of such a park are rumored to be in the works. However, many skateboarders argue that keeping them confined to one spot, caged in like beasts, is not the answer.

"Parks are fun, but skateboarders need change," Washington says. "If the city builds a good park, it will definitely get skated, but we'll always continue to skate the streets. I mean, that's where skating came from, you know?"

So what's the solution? Many skateboarders believe there isn't one. Skaters such as Washington and Hufnagel say they will continue to skate street spots regardless of the consequences.

"Skating in the streets is what it's all about," Hufnagel says.

Skateboarding is considered one of the most popular recreational activities among today's youth. Many big-name corporations, such as Nike, Reebok, Mountain Dew, Red Bull and even Sony, are investing big money into skateboarding, paying riders enormous sums to endorse their products -- money unheard of in the skateboarding industry less than 10 years ago. Professional skateboarders are in the mainstream now -- celebrity figures. A few even have their own television shows, big-picture movies and video games.

When asked whether skateboarding's popularity would peak, Washington says, "You know the old saying: What goes up must come down. Skateboarding's popularity might cool off a little bit, but I don't think it will ever take a dive like it did in the late '80s."

San Francisco is no longer considered to be the skateboarding hub -- no particular city is these days. Washington and Hufnagel agree that skateboarding in San Francisco is still alive and well and always will be no matter what the future has in store.